Powers/Abilities: W'Sulli is an accomplished Houngan, or voodoo
witch-doctor. However, W'Sulli is very old, and his current powers are a
small fraction of what they once were. He has a lifetime's knowledge gained
from practicing voodoo, though his memory is now failing. W'Sulli's displayed
abilities are all ritual magic, and as such require a measure of time and
preparation to conduct.

With a Govi, or sacred urn, W'Sulli can trap spirits, either to control others
or to protect his own spirit. W'Sulli can summon, though not control, the
spirit of the
Eternal
Warrior. W'Sulli can destroy certain undead, such as zombies. Presumably
he knows many other rituals which he has not displayed use of.

W'Sulli is subject to a fit-causing illness which can leave him unconscious.

History:
(Marvel Preview I #12 - BTS) - W'Sulli came to an African tribe, becoming
first the tribe's witch-doctor and later its chief. Six years after W'Sulli
joined the tribe, his estranged son infected the tribe with a voodoo-created
plague, killing most of the village while W'Sulli chose not to oppose him
out of fatherly loyalty.

(Marvel Preview I #12) - W'Sulli's son Mi'chi'li, also a voodoo master, sent
the Nightspawn to W'Sulli's village. W'Sulli attempted to oppose it, but
suffered a fit and was rendered unconscious. The vampire killed the remaining
living villagers and left, believing W'Sulli dead. Upon recovering, W'Sulli
summoned the spirit of the deceased Eternal Warrior, also known as Sar'wa
or Gilgamesh, and Sar'wa defeated the Nightspawn and killed Mi'chi'li.

(Marvel Two-in-One #41 (fb)) - The Nightspawn recovered and returned to attack
W'Sulli, but W'Sulli managed to trap the vampire's spirit in a Govi (sacred
urn), making the vampire into a zuvembie, a controlled undead. Using the
zuvembie Nightspawn as a slave, W'Sulli rebuilt his village and gathered
a new tribe. Dr. Kinji Obatu stumbled across the village, and the two began
working together.

(Marvel Two-in-One #40) - At W'Sulli's behest, the Nightspawn traveled to
New York City, where it kidnapped people (including the Black Panther) whom
the Daily Bugle had put on a list of the city's "Ten Most Successful Blacks."

(Marvel Two-in-One #41) - W'Sulli and Dr. Obatu delivered the ten kidnap
victims to Uganda's dictatorial ruler, Idi Amin. W'Sulli transferred the
spirits of the ten into the Govi, placing the ten entirely under his control
and at Amin's disposal. However, The Thing and Brother Voodoo came to rescue
the Black Panther, and at Brother Voodoo's direction the Thing smashed the
Govi, freeing the ten enslaved people and restoring the zuvembie to its vampiric
status. The now-freed Nightspawn attacked W'Sulli, leaving him either dead
or unconscious, before feeling into the night.

Comments:

W'Sulli, Mi'chi'li, the Nightspawn, and the Eternal Warrior were created
by David Kraft, Bob Brown, and Pablo Marcos.

"Zuvembie" was used at Marvel as a generic term for a controlled zombie,
though it has also been applied to controlled vampires (as in this case)
or even to controlled living people disguised as zombies. The term does predate
its Marvel usage- Robert E. Howard's 1939 story "Pigeons From Hell" features
a zuvembie, there identified as a form of female zombie created by West Indies
voodoo magic.

Use of the term "zuvembie" allowed Marvel to "cheat" the Comics Code Authority-
the CCA did not allow the use of zombies in its books. The CCA's General
Standards (section B/5, as revised in 1971) read "Scenes dealing with, or
instruments associated with walking dead, or torture, shall not be used.
Vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled
in the classic tradition such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high calibre
literary works written by Edgar Allen Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle and other respected
authors whose works are read in schools around the world." Apparently no
such limitation applied to zuvembies (perhaps the CCA could not prove exactly
what a zuvembie is, though everyone knows a zombie is undead?). Marvel did
have several "zombies" in its books, but those were generally in the larger
magazine-format black and white books, which Marvel did not submit to the
Comics Code Authority.

The Nightspawn is unnamed in these books, but the Appendix in the Marvel Encyclopedia Vol. 6: The Fantastic Four (2004) establishes the Nightspawn name for him. It also establishes that the Nightspawn first appeared in Marvel Preview #12; though the Preview version has hair while the Two-in-One character does not. One could hypothesize that the fall in the fire at the end of the Preview story, combined with the mystic assault of the Eternal Warrior, burned his hair off. Or, it could be artistic license.

In regards to the Eternal Warrior sub-profile below, there's the following
note: In Tales of the Zombie#3, an eternally reincarnated reborn from
the grave warrior named Gilgamesh appears as a samurai. - Per Degaton

With the sliding timescale, the references to handing the victims over
to Idi Amin become topical, and the actual recipient of the kidnappees would
now be another, unspecified, African dictator. The Fantastic Four Encyclopedia changed "Idi Amin" to "Eda Arul"; this is equally topical. - Loki

(Marvel Preview I #12) - The Eternal Warrior is an African spirit. He is "he who returns from the
grave to fight and conquer, then retires to the oblivion of the grave." Before
death, his name was Gilgamesh, W'Sulli knew him as Sar'wa, and he has been
known by many names to many people throughout the ages. As living dead, the
Eternal Warrior has strength, endurance, speed, and resistance to injury
much greater than a normal humans- as he his undead, it might be impossible
to kill the Eternal Warrior before completion of its mission. The Eternal
Warrior has only fleeting memories of his original life.

Summoned by W'Sulli, the Eternal Warrior was armed with spear and knife and
dressed in tribal warrior's garb. It is not known if the Eternal Warrior
always appears in these clothes, or if his clothing and weapons are determined
by his summoner's expectations.

W'Sulli summoned the Eternal Warrior, who accepted W'Sulli's pleas for aid
in stopping his murderous son, Mi'chi'li. The Eternal Warrior defeated
Mi'chi'li's vampiric slave, and slew Mi'chi'li with his spear. The Eternal
Warrior then left the vampire in flames, returned Mi'chi'li's body to his
father, and then returned to oblivion until summoned again.

(Tales of the Zombie#3) - "Gilgamesh. That had been his
first name. There had been so many since that he
sometimes forgot. For he was the Eternal Warrior,
returning from the dead to fight and conquer and
returning to his restless grave when the deed was
done".
In feudal Japan, Gilgamesh was summoned by a man
who wished to have his daughter freed from a dragon.
Gilgamesh assumed the form of a Nipponese samurai.
Gilgamesh fought the dragon, only to discover that the
daughter had been turned into (or always was?) a
demon, projecting images of her human form to lure the
unwary. Gilgamesh returned to the grave. --John McDonagh

The Nightspawn is an African vampire who, through unknown circumstance, became
controlled by W'Sulli's son, Mi'chi'li. When the Eternal Warrior slew Mi'chi'li,
the vampire was freed from control. The vampire later attacked W'Sulli, but
W'Sulli trapped his spirit, making him a Zuvembie. When the Thing destroyed
the urn that trapped his spirit, the freed vampire attacked W'Sulli and then
fled into the Ugandan night.

As a Zuvembie, the Nightspawn was completely under W'Sulli's control. He
maintained all his normal powers, and even enjoyed certain undefined protections
from destruction.

As a vampire, he presumably possessed all traditional vampiric powers and
weaknesses- he was seen to turn into mist and into a bat, drank blood, was
able to recover from extreme damage, and was weakened by a cross.